Flugelling and I
By Scott Parkinson

It is often in the early morning hours when I notice it the most. During those long, lonely training sessions before everyone else is awake, the feeling creeps over me. I feel that the joy is gone, that the innocent love of the sport has left me, and all that is now in its place is a need to compete for glory and recognition. It is during these moments, that I ask myself why I'm still doing it? Where has the love gone? Has competition robbed me and my contemporaries of something special or has it elevated our sport to a new level? It is nagging questions like these that made me analyze my involvement in flugelling. I had to look at how I view the sport now, as opposed to when I picked it up as a kid just looking for something to do with my free time.

As most of you know, Flugelling, or Speed Masturbation as it is now known competitively, has a long and rich tradition. Most of us can remember the first time that we flugelled as kids and just how exhilarating it was. We all have had different experiences, but through them all one thing stands out--the basic joy that flugelling brought us. That feeling of independence, of carefree abandon as we raced towards our goal. Flugelling made us feel important and special. It gave us confidence in our ability to accomplish things. It showed us the rewards of discipline and persistence. It brought us happiness and taught us something about ourselves in the process. All in all, it was the perfect sport for young minds and bodies.

The lackadaisical nature of flugelling persisted for centuries without any change in its routine, since time immemorial. Flugelling was always a sport of relaxation. Something that was normally played on a pick-up basis, never was flugelling regimented and organized. That is until it happened upon the 20th century. The 20th century wasn't easy on many traditional activities. The technological era had many changes in store for the slower, more pastoral pastimes, and flugelling was one of them.

The hard edge of the new era wanted competitors, not hobbyists. To this end, Madison Avenue created the harsh world of professional sports to satisfy the demands of a competition-hungry society. It wasn't long before an infrastructure was in place to locate and guide potential talent for these sports machines. Flugelling was one of the earliest victims.

Soon, where there used to be individuals practicing a sport for fun and personal fulfillment, there was an intricate network of scouts and talent evaluators watching for rising stars. The reasons that kids started flugelling were still the same, but if some showed any talent for the sport, they quickly found a different attitude and approach to the game.

It was into this world that I stepped as a young, wide-eyed fellow. I had grown up on the mean streets of Chicago, where there was little of anything to go around, and often the only thing that we had to play was a good round of flugelling. I excelled at the sport early on, not by any hard work, but more from natural talent. I soon found that the better flugeller I was the more people treated me different... better. It was not uncommon for me to be out flugelling and have people gather around and start shouting encouragement. "Go for it", "You can do it", "Atta' boy", "Nice shootin' Tex," rang with sweet harmony in my young ears. I grew to like the positive attention that my flugelling skills brought me and soon found myself working hard to be better at the sport.

With the increased effort my natural skills exploded into their potential. It was within no time that I was being courted by several colleges and even a few semi-pro teams. I loved being the focus of attention and so I tried even harder to hone my flugelling skills.

My abilities kept growing and the doors kept opening. I soon found myself in the pros as the young hotshot. I loved the attention, I loved the crowds, and I loved the money. I realized that all of this was because I was such a great flugeller and soon I began to tie my identity into my flugelling. It was no longer the happy-go-lucky hobby of a young man, instead it was a job that I worked hard at to maintain. Somewhere things had changed, but for years I didn't notice. I kept on flugelling and flugelling with all of my might, just loving the attention that it brought.

But now I know that I have changed. It wasn't a sudden realization, but rather a gradual awakening. I have had good years and bad. I have suffered serious injuries, but recovered. In short, I had seen most of what flugelling could throw at a person and still I am here; and still, I flugel. Yet, there is a part of me that knows, in a feeling more than a clear memory, what it was like to flugel when I was young. That irrepressible need to play the sport, not because I had to for a check or attention, but just because of the simple joy that it brought me.

I used to flugel for hours. I did it before school, after school, at lunch time--every chance that I got. It was fun and I had fun. But then came the attention and with it the slow transformation of my motives. I don't think there is any clear point, a definite line, where I can say that I stopped doing it for pleasure and instead for more material gains. Yet, I now know that I am no longer doing it for the reasons that I first picked up the sport. The transformation was slow, but in the end, it was complete.

All of us lose some of our childhood when we mature into adults, it is inevitable, but there is something different about selling a part of your childhood for a better future. It cheapens your soul by degrading your innocence. You rob your own memories of their hallowed status in the past by connecting them to the present. It is for this reason that I feel worse for having allowed such a happy piece of my youth to become such a large piece of my maturity. The two realms should not be connected, they are governed by different rules, and to do so is a shame. A child plays and an adult works, this is an unfortunate reality of our world. We should never make what a child plays become what an adult works, it hollows out the soul by placing a price tag on the motions of youth.

All of this explains Scott's perverse fascination with Chuck Mangione, master of the flugelhorn.

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